Erika Ritter's funny and audacious debut novel examines contemporary human conditions through the eyes of a woman and a dog. Single and on the downhill side of forty, Dana Jaeger has an unswerving allegiance to short-term involvements and perennially arrested adolescence. Lately, though, unexpected developments have begun to test the depth of her devotion to non-commitments. her ex-husband is slowly dying, and an unlikely romance with a private detective is in rapid progress toward something more meaningful than her typical revolving-door relationships with a stable of "Marrieds." Together, the forces of love and loss threaten to unleash within Dana desires as carefully concealed as landmines. Across this treacherous terrain lopes Murphy--a mutt capable of consuming lawn mowers--whom Dana agrees to dogsit (short-term, of course) as a favour to an out of town lover. Garrulously opinionated and no stranger himself to pent-up desires, Murphy offers his own inspired insights into Dana's amatory adventures. Between them, mongrel and mistress present a sometimes wry, sometimes antic, portrait of our innermost selves sprung to life, and our deepest longings--for love, revenge, a clean getaway--gracefully realized. Exuberant and incisive, The Hidden Life of Humans sounds the deepest notes of the comical dissonance between our public and private selves, and the promise that lies between who we are, who we claim to be, and who we might yet become.